A Man
by Dodge Riot
Summary: Roxas reflects on a man that he once knew. Implied AkuRoku, possibly onesided Axel's side. From Roxas' prespective inside Sora's mind.


I knew a man once, but he wasn't really a man.

What he was, what I was, what they all were, were Nobodies. We weren't supposed to exist. We were beings--if you could call us that--without hearts that could remember nothing of our previous lives or our others. Without hearts, we had no emotions or feelings to call our own. No remorse, no love, not even a real hatred with which to fuel ourselves. We only had the illusion of the emotions--what little we could remember--we felt when we still had hearts.

Nobodies are created when a living, breathing person loses their heart to a Heartless. Most Nobodies are not aware of themselves or what they are missing. They have basic functioning levels and that is all. But the members of The Organization, we were special. We were cursed--or "blessed"--with self-awareness. We knew what were we were missing and we wanted it back. We wanted hearts to call our very own. When a Nobody is created, they are shells of their former selves. In our cases, we were faded shells of our others. We knew nothing of our former selves, but knew we were faded versions of them with our own personalities and the like.

But No. VIII--The Flurry of Dancing Flames--was different from the other Organization members, set apart by his intensity. His fiercely-red mane and glowing, catlike green eyes set him apart from his dull counterparts. But not only his physical features were intense. His personality was ten times as overwhelming as his hair.

Axel. The Flurry of Dancing Flames' name was Axel.

He lived--I say lived because I can't bring myself to say he merely existed, as it would be a lie--as if he had never lost his heart. He was selfish and looked out for his own interests. His anger came as quickly and powerfully as an earthquake. He was fierce, demanding and manipulative.

He was not called the Flurry of Dancing Flames for no reason.

Nobodies are beings that should not exist to begin with, so we lived on the edge of oblivion. We teetered so close to the edge, that a simple push would erase us from existence and send us back to the nothingness from which we were created. Axel dared to play closer to that edge than the rest of us. He taunted the darkness and played a deadly game with oblivion.

A game he eventually lost.

When I left The Organization to find answers, they ordered Axel to either bring me back or destroy me, a choice that did not sit well with him. He saw no other options, but to bring me back, but by the time he reached me I had been intercepted by DiZ and my memories had been erased.

After fights and exchanges of words, I remembered my dear friend, but it was too late as DiZ's plan to assimilate me back into Sora was complete. There was nothing Axel or I could do, so we simply let it happen.

Several somethings--from inside Sora's mind, I could never really tell how much time passed--later, Axel and Sora met again. Dusks--a low ranking Nobody--had surrounded Sora and his two counterparts. It looked like that was game over for us, but Axel came to play. No matter how many Dusks he singed back into oblivion, they kept coming and never decreased in number.

This is where Axel met his demise in nowhere amidst the darkness he had taunted his entire existence. There was one thing to do and No. VIII did it without a second thought. As Sora kneeled next to the fading Nobody, Axel laughed.

"_Guess that's what you get for putting your whole being, if you can call it that, into an attack._"

Inside Sora, I was screaming, crying and begging Axel not to fade. My pleas even reached Sora's heart and tears fell from his eyes. Axel just smiled. I knew he saw me there inside Sora's being.

"_Why?_" Sora asked through his tears.

"_I wanted to see Roxas. He was the only one I liked...he made me feel...like I had...a heart._"

I knew a man once; he was a Somebody. He was my best friend. He was fierce and manipulative and faded because he loved me. No one can ever tell me that Axel did not have a heart because in his last moments, I saw tears fall from his eyes.

No one without emotions can cry and you cannot feel emotions without a heart.


End file.
